Review: Grosse Pointe Blank
I’d planned to watch this movie the weekend of my 10th high school reunion, in place of actually going to the reunion. I figured that between watching the movie and catching up with classmates on facebook for the last few years, all my vicarious bases would be covered. Well, my reunion came and went the Saturday of Thanksgiving. Saw some of the lead-up discussion online, saw some of the pictures. Didn’t watch the movie again until recently.
I’m sure I didn’t watch it again because the last time I did, I really didn’t enjoy it. I’ve seen it several times, and I find that I’m willing to suspend a little less disbelief each time. I’m getting older, of course, and that the movie deals with that subject isn’t lost on me. Some movies do not age particularly well – I heard Annie Hall dropped into a conversation about this last week – but I don’t think Grosse Pointe Blank falls into that category. I’m the one who hasn’t aged well. But neither has my initial, most flattering perception of the movie.
Looking back, I could see it making sense to my younger self that I would appreciate the movie even more as I get older, perhaps culminating at the very point at which my graduating class would celebrate its own 10th anniversary. But those things that struck me during this most recent viewing were generally negative. Now, of course, when you see a film a number of times, you may pick up more, or at least different, things each time. But I’ve seen other movies more times, and those repeat viewings deepen and enhance the joy I feel about what I’ve seen, unlike with this one here.
Two small personal notes: The song over the opening credits, “I Can See Clearly Now,” by Johnny Nash, is the first song I listened to my senior year of high school after getting into the school I wanted to attend. Though, unlike Martin Blank (John Cusack), I was not about to kill someone when I heard the first news of my reunion.
My biggest complaints with the movie this time around involve the pacing and, well, the premise itself. Regarding the premise – I know it’s a movie, and I know it’s also a black comedy – but I was put off by just how long it takes, and how much it takes, for anyone to realize Martin is what he says he is. He’s got to be covered in blood holding a freshly used murder weapon for Debi (Minnie Driver, who if I didn’t recently see in a trailer for something might have shrunk and turned into Amy Winehouse) to react (run away at the school), then overreact (in the hotel room, when talking would have done), then underreact (when she rides away with Martin cheerfully at the very end, his having saved her life completely having changed her mind about what he’d done).
I found it somewhat disingenuous that a bunch of glib characters and their precious dialogue would be so shocked at such a reveal. I’d think anyone jaded enough, with an ironic enough stance in their humdrum lives, wouldn’t suddenly remember how to be aghast. Maybe I’m jaded myself.
I also thought the last sequence, from looking at the red dossier to picking up Debi’s father, to the shootout at the house, all goes by quickly and abruptly, as if just to get the two main characters together and off toward the sunset in time for the credits to roll.
And – I thought Martin could be spared the humiliation by not insisting he crash Debi’s radio show, instead waiting for her to be done and talking to her then. But, if that happens, that’s just real life and there’s no movie. But also, for a guy who disappeared for a decade, and who makes his living not being noticed, with a symbolic last name, it sort of doesn’t make sense for him to be so blunt and so conspicuous. A grand sweeping gesture but ultimately not even romantic. So, I believed it up to when the character loses his integrity, which I think is a fair point.
I do find interesting just how often Martin says, “You look good.” Just about everyone he meets again receives that compliment. I don’t know what exactly to make of it – several things, I guess. I like that someone who disappeared has such an interest in other people’s appearances. But in the conversation with his teacher, especially, we see he probably hasn’t changed much – just a very nice guy, ready with a compliment, but ready to kill you if someone’s paid him too. There’s the rub, and a nice juxtaposition.
On that note, I can remember why I liked the movie very much to begin with. Martin’s an interesting, watchable character, for sure. The jokes are still there, and many are still funny. That my perception has changed this much might have less to do with the movie than with me, but, that’s part of it.
Two stars – down ~1/4 star each viewing from Three stars, ten years ago.
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